Where's the best place on your body to get shot?

this is uh. We say this how Stuff you Should Know is just named to uh iTunes two thousand eight Best of two thousand eight podcasts, And we say this as a thank you to the fans, ay and as a thank you to our producer Jerry. This is not a pad on our back. Our producer Jerry works tirelessly to edit, to provide the music, makes the sound quality everyone talks about. How great. Yes, everything we say is wrong.

Jerry has to go back um figure out the right answer right and edit it so that it sounds like we know what we're talking about. Essentially, so Jerry's work and the fans that sin is a big, big reason why we were named best of two thousand eight and something we're really proud of. So we just want to say thank you and let's get on with it. Yeah, let's how about gun death. How about that for a segue. Well, Jerry's crying now, so I think a gun death is a good way to go. Okay, all right, So um

wow that was really something that was great. Um, I'm for Clint, are you? Yeah, Well I've never seen you get choked up? Okay, alright, alright, so gun death, gun death, basically chuck. There's a new study that was released though I think about four hours ago. Really yeah, less than that actually, um, And it found that states that have lax handgun laws. There's actually ten of them that have really lacks handgun laws, and I believe George is one

of them. See, we're one of those states. You can come down and buy like fifty guns if you want, and then take them to New York and sell them. Yeah. Well, states like ours actually have a higher in stince per capita of UM handgun related deaths, actually seventy more. So that's not altogether shocking, No, it's not. And what's even less shocking is that these statistics are found in the US. Because you can make a pretty good case that, um,

the US is a gun culture. Yeah, you want some numbers, Yeah, I'm flying in with the stats as we speak. Uh, United States in two thousand seven, there were a total of two hundred and seventy million guns. Yes, and that is ninety guns for every hundred people. Right, And just to put that in perspective, India, which is kind of surprised me, actually the second most armed nations. Well think think about this. India also has like a billion people living there. We have a quarter of the population have

been India, right. Uh So, having said that, India has a forty five million compared to our two seventy and there's second in the most heavily armed nation on the planet. So there you go. Yeah, um so that's that's a lot of guns. We had a lot of guns for people. You know. Um, I spent some time when I was in high school. I lived in kenne Saw, Georgia, and kenne Saw actually has a law on the books that says you have to own a gun if you live

in kenne Saw. That was probably passed right around the time you were growing up there, right, I think it was pasted a few years before because I heard of it. Yeah, I'd heard of it when you know, before we came down and I don't know gun guy, but apparently crime dropped quite a bit. And it did. And it also it also was an end run around any debate over gun control. They just said, no, forget it, We're going the exact opposite way of gun control. Everybody has to

have a gun. And clearly, you know, the police didn't enter your house in search, which would have been stupid to do in kenne Saw because everybody's armed. So it wasn't very heavily enforced law, but it's a it was a significant one. Everybody in Kennethan knew it, you know. But we're not talking about gun control today. No, that's not what this podcast is all about. Just to set up, Yeah, what we're talking about is, uh, where do you want to get shot? What isn't that what we're talking about?

The best place to get shot? Oh? Yes, yes, yes, actually yes, um. And and the reason we were talking about guns is because there's so many of them, it's pretty you know, you have a pretty high likelihood in the US to get shot. So as a service of you know, a public service of how stuff works, we're here to advise you on the best place to take a bullet if you do get shot, as if you can control that, oh THEO. There are a couple of things you could do. Sure, I mean you're in a

grocery store and and it goes down. You know, the stuff is the fan, that kind of thing. Now you'll know what to do or um. An example I used is um if an angry loan shark is like, I got a bullet here with your name on it. Where you want to take it? Now you'll know? Okay, So, um, let's let's first kind of describe what happens when you get shot, right, Because an understanding of this called wound ballistics.

It's the field of study of, you know, what a bullet does to bone and tissue organ Once you understand that, you can figure out pretty easily where the best place to get shot is. Um. Okay, So, wound ballistics, Chuck, yes. Kinetic energy, Josh, Yes. Bullets entire purpose on this planet is to take the energy that it has when it's shot out of a gun and transfer it to your body, right, which is determined by its weight and velocity in trajectory.

In trajectory, yes, So you take all these things together and actually you can predict pretty well the kind of damage that's going to be done. Um, if you are shot in a bone, a bone is going to absorb most of that kinetic energy, if not all, which sounds like a good thing. It's not, it's not. It means your bone is just totally shattered, right, which causes essentially

a mini shrapnel explosion inside your body. Yeah, and the bone fragments actually end up doing I don't know about as much, but does a lot of damage to your organs. And then they've been known to travel all sorts of crazy places too. Yeah. Bullets, Uh, the another big JFK magic bullet theory sounds crazy and I'm not citing one way or the other, but bullets have been known to

do weird, weird things once they hit objects. Didn't wasn't it that that Texas senator didn't It supposedly hit his elbow and travel up his arm and then go out and then hit JFK in the face or something. Yeah. And my my brother in Lawn, he's in the Marine Corps, told me a story one time about a firing range accident where a fellow marine was shot and it like went in his shoulder and traveled across his chest and then down the arm and like out the tip of

his finger. Wow, just tumbling. It's just nuts. Yeah yeah. So okay, so these things are deadly and unpredictable, which is a really bad. Yeah. Um okay, so that's what happens when you when when bones hit that kinetic energy is transferred, the bone with shatters and it's bad. And ultimately, here's a little side note, um getting shot through and through and in and out. It's actually it's actually good, right.

I mean, you you may bleed death, but you're probably gonna bleed to death anyway if it hits some sort of vital organ um or major artery. But the bullet wasn't. It didn't manage to transfer all of its energy, which

is why it kept traveling. If it stays in your body, all that energy was transferred to your bone um soft tissue, which actually doesn't it doesn't um, it doesn't crush the kind of wound that a bone sustains as a crushing wound, crushing penetration um soft tissue or organs, that kind of thing that actually suffers a cavitation. This is screwed up, right,

This is actually this kind of surprised me. When a bullet passes through you through tissue, it creates a cavity that can be up to thirty times as wide as the bullet itself. And yeah, and it's it's created by the shock waves, right, and then the path closes behind the bullet. It's like a split second opening this gulf in your soft tissue. Um, and then it closes behind. But that that damnage is already done. That shockwave has

already just trashed all that soft tissue. Um. So that's that's bad too, right, which sort of brings us to these specialty bullets. Yeah, they are especially made to do maximum harm. We're talking about uh, full metal jacket bullets

and then yeah, good movie too. And the hollow points which are designed to fragment after impact or hollow points are soft and they actually flatten and spread out and create a wider area wider than that yeah, because you know, if you have a little pointy bullet, it's not going to make as as much, it's not gonna have as much of a wide of a track or create a cavity. So I just call those people killing bullets exactly. I mean, these things are designed to to most efficiently transfer their energy,

all of it to the human body. Um. So yeah, so so now we kind of understand what a bullet can do, right, Um now the body, right, the human body, So bone can shatter. Yes, so you want to kind of you don't. You don't want to get shot in a place that's real bony, especially if it's a bone that's near a vital organ. Right your ribs, Yeah, your chest is just out of the question. You've got you've got lungs in there, You've got heart. I think the liver's in there somewhere. I mean, you've got a bunch

of really important stuff in there. Yeah. Between your waist and your neck is a lot of organs going on. And if all of a sudden you have rigged rib fragments flying all over the place. Then and also getting shot in the spine not a great place. Um, probably lifelong paralysis, if not death. Um, not not a good spot. Your head is a terrible spot too. Yeah. I know the guy that did you interview him or yeah? Yeah,

his name is Ed size More. Yeah, he said, you know, you'd rather get shot in the brain then in the heart. He said he'd rather get shot in the heart than the brain, right, because you can repair a heart. There's artificial hearts, there's no artificial brain. Although he also pointed out that, um, there are plenty of people who uh survive um, gunshot wounds of their brains from I think nineteen eighty something to nineteen ninety three. Uh, it's pretty

it was. It wasn't that scientific. Um, I'm sorry. It was two to nine sixty six percent of the people who came into Cook County General Hospital in Chicago with gunshot wounds to their brain lived. So it's not necessarily fatal to get shot in the brain, but you can be messed up for the rest of your life. Sure, brain damage, and that's not kind of fun either. No, So you want to stay away from the head. You

want to stay away from the torso the spine. Um. And I think really ultimately, every single one of our listeners is like, yeah, really, what what a huge surprise? What an enlightning podcast. Okay, so let's go to the arms and legs and smarties. Huh did any of you say arms or legs, because if so, you'd be wrong. Yeah. But my first thought was maybe to get shot in the leg would be a good place because in the movies, they just tie bandana around it and limp off. Yeah

did you did you ever see? Uh? I think it was Rambo. I think it was First Blood Part two might have been three. Um where he gets shot in the side, through and through wound and he's done in like some sewer or something, and he pours like gasoline or or sterno into it and then lights it on fire with a torch to motorize the wound shot and it just shoots through like the side of his body and he screams and everything. It's awesome. It was pretty good. You just I just got a glimpse into twelve year

old Josh. Yeah, yeah, I think I was even younger than that. But yeah, that was good stuff. Um okay, So but again, had he had he chosen wisely, he wouldn't have gotten shot in the side again close to internal organs. But let's get back to the arms and legs. No, because major major arteries, the femeral and the brachial arteries run through the leg and the arm, respectively, So these

are huge arteries. They're they're responsible for all the blood flow to your extremities, which is pretty important because without it, they would freeze off when it got you know, down to thirty five degrees um. And if you get shot in any one of these, if these things become severed, um, you'll bleed out in about two or three minutes. Yeah. Once I read the part about the femoral artery, it recalled. And you know I've heard a lot on the news about people getting shot in the leg and dying, and

that's the reason. It can be a very deadly place to get shot. So what are we left with? Well, uh, by my account, the head, the chest, the arms, and legs are out, so I would just say the feet in the hands, that is right. It's probably the best place to right. And also somebody out there who may say, well, what about the pubic region the hip? No, no, um, there is a nerve bundle your hip. That is by again Ed Sizemore is reckoning. Um. The most painful place

to get shot. The nerve bundle right there would just shoot pain throughout your body in the most efficient manner possible. So not the pelviace either, but yes, a hand or a foot, well, there's all kinds of bones though, So it is true this is the thing you know there you would suffer some terrible, terrible crushing injuries. Um, you may never use your hand or foot that you got shot in again. Number one, you have another one. Okay, so let's say you you get even you know, your

your foot just completely disabled. Um. There are such things as crutches, wheelchairs. You can drag your foot along behind you with your good foot, your hand. You'll never work with your you know whatever hand you got shot in again. But think about the drummer from def Leppard. He droned with only one arm. Okay, so I mean there's exactly yes, um is that his name? Next one? Um? So, so yes, it would hurt, but think about how thin your hand and feet are. It could go right through it. Hopefully

we'll go right through. And also those bones that are getting shattered as that you know, high high, high speed, hollow point bullet and rushrooms into it and it goes out the other end. Um. There, it's very unlikely those those fragments will travel to a vital organ. Right, So is it there far enough away? Well? I guess just makes sense because whenever you hear about stories about army dudes in various wars, you want to get sent home. They shoot themselves in the foot. That's just a common

way to do it to get sent home. Yeah, at the very least Stewie and Brian did right from the family guy. Yeah it didn't work though, Yeah yeah, so yeah, hand or foot that's the way to go, agreed. I would if someone came running at me with a gun, I would lie down and stick up my arms and legs and and my hands in front of my face. Actually, you you would be right in lying down. Mr Sizemore told me, you know, if you get down on the ground,

you're presenting a smaller target. His number one advice to any civilian UM who is being shot at run run. I believe he may have said run, like hell yeah, yeah, I would do this too. That's another good idea too. I mean, most people can't shoot to say their lives. Yeah, um so yeah, but you know you could just as easily run into a bullet. That that's true. So yeah, number one, run number two laid down on the ground. Do you have a choice? Hand? Foot? Yeah? Exactly. So

you know that brings us to right listener mail listener mail. Okay, so who do who do we have one from there? Buddy? This week we have um one from one Coral Clark from San Jose, California's Great Need. And this we've already talked about the jelly bean thing ad nauseam, the booger flavored beans. Hopefully this one will put it to rest, because this is sort of a correction upon a correction that we've already done. So in one of our podcasts

we talked about booger flavor jelly beans. Josh doubted I had had them, and no, they weren't just real boogers that I've had, and someone confirmed. But now Coral writes in and says back to booger flavor jelly beans jellybellies. While it is true that the trade name Jellybelly does not market these unusually flavored sweets, the company that manufactures them goalets is commissioned to make Bertie Potts Every Flavor beans of Harry Potter fan which I know you mentioned

in our podcast. Uh while, when I tore the California factory, they did confirm that they manufactured Bertie Potts Every Flavor beans and their factories using the same process as for jellybellies, except they did not always use all natural flavors, bringing you flavors alike dirt, bacon, spaghetti, earwax, and vomit. I could go for bacon or spaghetti. Yeah, but I don't know why those would be gross. Well, I agree, but I mean it's a really little tiny capsules of bacon

and spaghetti that's kind of nights actually. Uh so uh. He goes on to say, I think you also mentioned bean boozled beans, where the black bean might be a liquorice or a skunk spray flavor, and the company Gullets produces those as well, So it's fantastic. Coral Clark, right, Coral Clark, greatest name ever. Thank you very much for

writing in. Thanks for the mail, and anybody else who wants to point out a point, or revise another point, or just say hi or whatever, send us up an email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. M brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you